How to manage up is a question that makes some people uncomfortable, because it sounds like office politics: flattering the boss, managing impressions, telling people what they want to hear. The real idea is different and more useful. Managing up means taking responsibility for the working relationship with your manager, instead of waiting for them to make it work. Done well, it makes you more effective and your manager's job easier, with no flattery involved.
This article covers where the idea came from, how to understand what your manager needs, how to handle information, bad news and disagreement, and what managing up is not.
How to manage up: what it actually means
The idea was set out most clearly in a 1980 Harvard Business Review article, "Managing Your Boss", by John Gabarro and John Kotter of Harvard Business School. Their central point was that the relationship between a manager and the person who reports to them is one of mutual dependence.
You depend on your manager for priorities, resources, connections to the rest of the organisation and support when things go wrong. Your manager depends on you for reliable work, honest information and cooperation. Most people think only about the first half. Gabarro and Kotter argued that people who ignore the second, who assume the relationship is the boss's job to manage, tend to be less effective and less recognised for what they do achieve.
Managing up, in their sense, is simply doing your half of that relationship on purpose.
Managing up is not managing your boss's opinion of you. It is managing the work you do together.
Understand your manager's goals and pressures
Your manager has a manager too, along with targets, deadlines and worries you may never hear about. Much of what looks like arbitrary behaviour from below, sudden priority changes, demands for updates, irritation about small things, makes sense once you know what pressure they are under.
The simplest way to find out is to ask. "What are the two or three things you most need to go well this quarter?" is a reasonable question for anyone to ask their manager, and the answer tells you where your work matters most and where to spend your effort.
Gabarro and Kotter also stressed knowing yourself: your own working style, strengths and blind spots, and how they fit or clash with your manager's. A person who needs autonomy working for someone who needs frequent updates will clash unless one of them adjusts, and it is usually quicker for you to adjust than to wait for them.
Learn how your manager takes in information
People differ in how they prefer to receive information, and matching that preference is one of the easiest improvements you can make. Peter Drucker, in his 1999 Harvard Business Review essay "Managing Oneself", described a basic split: some people are readers and some are listeners. Readers want a written document to study. Listeners want to talk it through first, and may skim a document without taking it in.
Beyond that, managers differ in how much detail they want, how often they want updates, and whether they prefer to hear about problems as they happen or in a weekly summary.
| If your manager is... | They usually want... |
|---|---|
| A reader | A short written summary before any meeting |
| A listener | A conversation first, with the document as follow-up |
| Detail-oriented | The numbers and the reasoning, not just the conclusion |
| Big-picture | The conclusion and the decision needed, in one line |
| Hands-on | Frequent short updates, especially early in a project |
| Hands-off | Updates only at milestones or when something changes |
If you are unsure, ask. "Do you prefer a written summary or a quick chat?" is not an awkward question. It is the kind of question that makes you easier to work with.
How this is taught inside Astra Trainer
The Career strategy direction in the Leadership, Career & Influence world runs to twelve courses on seeing where your career is heading and making moves on purpose. The relationship with your manager is one of the biggest factors in that, because it shapes what work you are given and whether what you achieve is seen.
Treating that relationship as something to manage deliberately, rather than something that happens to you, is the shift the material is built around. Lessons take about five minutes and a guide walks you through anything strange.
Check yourselfYou have spotted a serious risk to your project but have no fix for it yet. Do you wait until you have one before telling your manager? Commit to an answer before reading on.Show the answerHide the answer
No. 'No surprises' is not the same as 'never bring a problem without a solution'. Most managers can live with bad news; what they struggle with is hearing it late, or from someone else. Hiding a problem until you have a fix is worse, so raise it now and bring your best thinking with it, even if that thinking is only a question.
No surprises
The fastest way to lose a manager's trust is to let them be surprised, especially in front of their own boss. Most managers can live with bad news. What they struggle with is hearing it late, or from someone else.
The rule is to tell them early, as soon as you know something is at risk, and to bring a proposal with it. "The integration is going to slip by two weeks. I think we can recover one of them by moving the testing earlier. Can I go ahead?" gives your manager the problem, your thinking, and a decision to make, rather than just a problem.
This is not the same as never bringing problems without solutions. Sometimes you will not have a solution, and hiding a problem until you do is worse. The principle is to bring your best thinking along with the problem, even if that thinking is only a question.
Agree expectations explicitly
Many difficulties between managers and their teams come from expectations that were never stated. You thought the deadline was flexible; they thought it was fixed. You thought you had authority to decide; they expected to be consulted.
At the start of any significant piece of work, confirm three things: what a good result looks like, when it is due, and what you can decide yourself. It takes five minutes and prevents most later disagreements. The same idea, seen from the other side, is covered in how to delegate effectively: good delegation names the outcome and the level of authority, and managing up means asking for those things when they are not offered.
Disagreeing with your manager
Managing up does not mean always agreeing. Some of the most useful things you can do for a manager involve telling them something they do not want to hear. The question is how.
- In private first. Disagreeing in front of others puts your manager in a position where backing down looks like losing. The same point made one to one is much easier to accept.
- With evidence. "I think this timeline is too tight, because the last two similar projects took eight weeks" is a contribution. "I do not think this will work" is a complaint.
- Once, clearly. Make your case properly and then stop. Repeating it becomes resistance.
- Then commit. If the decision goes the other way, support it fully, unless it is unethical. Managers remember people who disagree well and then help make the decision work.
Understanding where your manager's authority comes from, and where yours does, helps judge how hard to push. The six bases of power at work covers this in more detail.
Try it now, on your own manager
Ticked: 0 of 5
The first two lines each take one direct question to fill, and neither is an awkward one to ask. The rest are habits, which is why they show over months rather than in a single conversation.
What managing up is not
It is not flattery. Telling your manager what they want to hear makes you less useful, because they stop getting accurate information from you.
It is not going around your manager. Taking problems to their boss without telling them first is the quickest way to end the trust the whole approach depends on.
It is not taking credit or managing appearances. Gabarro and Kotter's point was about effectiveness: making the working relationship produce better results for both of you. People who manage up well tend to be recognised, but because the work goes better, not because they arranged to be noticed.
A worked example
An analyst feels her manager micromanages her: constant check-ins, requests for updates, questions about small decisions. Her first reaction is frustration. Applying the ideas above, she asks what her manager most needs this quarter, and learns he is under pressure from his own director after a project last year went wrong without warning.
She suggests a short written update every Friday, flagging anything at risk. Within a month the check-ins have almost stopped. Her manager was never really doubting her. He was protecting himself from another surprise, and once he had a reliable way to avoid one, he no longer needed to hover.
Why managing up is a habit, not a tactic
Managing up works through consistency: the weekly update that always arrives, the bad news that is always early, the disagreement that is always private. One good conversation does little. A reliable pattern changes how your manager works with you.
Astra Trainer is built around consistent habits. Quizzes follow each topic and each course ends with a ten-question final exam, while daily quests, points and a streak keep five-minute lessons going. A Circle gives you a small group with a shared weekly goal and live sessions, useful for comparing how different managers work and what has helped others.
What to take from this
Managing up means taking responsibility for your half of a relationship of mutual dependence, as Gabarro and Kotter argued in 1980.
Learn your manager's goals and pressures, and match how they like to receive information, whether they are a reader or a listener.
No surprises: bring bad news early with your best thinking attached. Agree expectations at the start. Disagree in private, with evidence, once, then commit.
Which is why the most useful answer to how to manage up is a question, asked early and repeated every few months: what do you most need from me right now?
Test yourself
Question 1 of 3
A manager keeps changing priorities and asking for extra updates, which feels arbitrary to the team. What does the article suggest often lies behind behaviour like this?
What does managing up mean?
Managing up means deliberately managing the working relationship with your boss: understanding their goals and pressures, communicating in the way they prefer, avoiding surprises and disagreeing constructively. It is about effectiveness, not flattery.
Where does the idea of managing up come from?
It was set out in a 1980 Harvard Business Review article, Managing Your Boss, by John Gabarro and John Kotter. They argued that the relationship between a manager and a subordinate is one of mutual dependence that both sides need to manage.
How do I tell my manager bad news?
Tell them as early as possible, before they hear it from anyone else, and bring your best thinking with it, such as a proposed fix or a decision you need from them. Late bad news damages trust far more than early bad news.
How do I disagree with my boss without damaging the relationship?
Raise it in private, back it with evidence, make your case clearly once, and then support the final decision unless it is unethical. Disagreeing in front of others makes it much harder for a manager to change course.
Where can I learn career strategy in short lessons?
The Career strategy direction inside the Leadership, Career & Influence world of Astra Trainer runs to twelve courses on seeing where your career is heading and making moves on purpose, in five-minute lessons with quizzes. The first lesson needs no card.
Where this leads. How Long Does It Take to Get Promoted? shows how the relationship with your manager affects each of the clocks that decide the timing.
